So what else is new, refugees arriving in America can’t find work and some, after only 3 months, will have no taxpayer- funded apartment. Hey, here is a thought, these government contractors, like World Relief, can just get in line with the auto industry and be bailed out with money we are printing.
I don’t mean to be so cynical, but it really ticks me off. It was only a matter of time before this scheme of government-funded non-profits resettling refugees in a sort of free-for-all competition for bodies would run into trouble. Increasingly dependent on their government contracts, these volags (supposedly voluntary agencies) have no extensive private charity networks which should have been developed over the last 20 years.
We saw that in Hagerstown, MD in 2007, government contracted church group swoops in with a couple hundred refugees and only 3 churches and a mosque willing to volunteer, and some of those quit because it was too much work for a few.
This program should have been set up mostly around private charity—one refugee family/one sponsor. Instead it’s a multimillion dollar government program where the heads of some of these volags make 6-figure salaries funded by the taxpayer.
Thank Ted Kennedy, Joe Biden and Jimmy Carter in 1980 for this brilliant idea.
Here is the story that set me off:
While the economic downturn has affected nearly all Americans adversely, new refugees in the United States have been hit particularly hard by the financial turmoil and many are facing possible eviction on Jan. 1. [January 1st because for some unexplained reason we bring hordes of refugees into the US in September as the fiscal year winds down, and their 3 months of subsidized housing ends then.]
These newcomers to America, including those fleeing persecution in Iraq and Myanmar, are often times some of the first to be laid off because they are new employees, explained Larry Jones, director of the World Relief office in Idaho. Other refugees have had their hours reduced, which can be devastating when they earn just $6.15 an hour.
For those who lose their jobs, they face the additional obstacle of finding a new job, which is difficult because of their limited English and job skills on top of a shrinking job market.
“I’ve been working in the refugee community for 20 years and I’ve never seen a time like this,” said Elaine Carson, director of one of World Relief’s resettlement offices in Florida, in a report. “I fear January 1st…it is scary.”
World Relief, an evangelical humanitarian and development ministry with a long history of resettling refugees in America, warns that many of the newcomers will be unable to pay their rent come January.
“We are experiencing this in all our offices across the country as the number of jobs shrinks,” said WR president Sammy Mah. “As we talk to other resettlement organizations, their experience is the same – there simply aren’t enough jobs in the current economic climate.”
I suggest it’s time for Sammy Mah and other top dogs in the refugee industry to take pay cuts to pay these poor people’s rent.
To top it off, we have Refugees International asking Obama for over 100,000 Iraqi refugees for fiscal year 2009. We can’t support the 13,000 we brought in 2008!
For more pathetic stories of refugees jobless and freaking out about being evicted, go to our Iraqi refugee category where I’ve posted most of these stories. Two days ago the Wall Street Journal published a story about immigrants now being pushed out of jobs by Americans looking for work.